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Step 1
First we will make a 500 by 500 pic. Think of what you want as a pixel. For the simplicity of this tutorial, I will be making a candy corn. You can make other simple things such as fruits or vegetables, which are easier than animals, people, ect. Just draw what you came up with.
Step 2
Now we will resize the image to 50 by 50 and zoom into 800px. Then make a new transparent layer above your drawing. On this layer we will outline your pixel with the pencil tool. Make sure you use the one pixel brush. Then hide your drawing layer. And remember that pixels like to stay separated. (Explained later)
Pixel rules
Pixels like to be separated and neat. I usually go with being symmetrical which makes it easier. Let me show you what I mean be separated and neat.
These pixels are smashed together. We need to fix that.
Now you can see that we erased one pixel to make the two pixel lines separated, which is the pixel rule.
Step 3
Now you must correct your pixels to the pixel rules if you haven’t already. Now make a new transparent layer underneath your pixel line. Now on the pixel line layer use the fuzzy select tool to choose one section of your pixel. Now on your new layer fill the selection with the color you want it to be. Make sure you choose a lighter tone then what you want. I hope this isn’t confusing…
Step 4
This is the longest and hardest step, so I split it into three. Please, focus on one color at a time. For this entire step you should be on the pixel outline layer. Pick a much darker tone of your color, and change the black pixels around the lighter color to the darker color.
Now on too the hard part. If you look in the tool options, you will see that you are able to change the opacity of your pencil. So now take the color of your outline and lower your pencil’s opacity to 50. Use that color and go around the inside of the outline once, the pixel rules don’t apply for this.
Now you will cut the opacity in half again to give us 25. Go around again, just not on the 50 percent opacity pixels. Keep cutting it in half and going around till you can’t do it any more. You should end up with something like this.
Step 5
Hopefully you got what I meant on step 4 and was able to make it to step 5. This step is just to add details, like eyes, mouth, seeds (if you did watermelon, ect.), shine, the list goes on, whatever you think you need to add go ahead. After adding in the details, delete your drawing layer and merge the other two layers. Crop if you like, and then save it as png and you have yourself a wonderful pixel.
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Thanks for reading my tutorial. Post your suggestions, tips, comments, and outcomes please. And have a happy Halloween.
Credits
Sorry for forgetting this...
This is not all my materials, it is a bunch of different techniques I took from other tutorials and some of my techniques.
Outcomes
by falestina_88
by Arukas
by captainwalrus
Animating your pixel Coming Soon
